At Code, Apple and Google Executives Look Forward

At last week's Code Conference, executives from Apple and Google talked about the future of their core businesses, with the Apple discussion focusing on the iPhone and the Apple Watch, and Google talking more about how the company can grow in a mobile world.

At last week's Code Conference, executives from Apple and Google talked about the future of their core businesses, with the Apple discussion focusing on the iPhone and the Apple Watch, and Google talking more about how the company can grow in a mobile world.

Apple: Phones Are NOT mature
Jeff Williams, Senior VP of Operations and head of development for the Apple Watch (above), talked about how he thought there was an "inevitability" in technology moving towards your body, and likened the movement of the pocket watch to the wrist to the need for computers on our wrists. He acknowledged the need for developers to get more access to the sensors in the watch, and said Apple would be introducing a preview SDK at its World Wide Developers Conference next Monday, with the full release coming a few months later.

He also spent a lot of time talking about health applications for the iPhone and the watch, talking about Apple's ResearchKit, which is being used in a variety of research projects and particularly focused on advances in research on Parkinson's disease and asthma.

In the long run, he said, apps based on this will help create more personalized medicine. For now, he said, the heart sensor and activity-tracking features may have the most significant impact on monitoring our health more acutely, although interviewer Walt Mossberg joked about how it made everyone with a watch want to stand up at 10 minutes before each hour. Later, Williams said, "we have an opportunity and maybe a moral obligation to help people live a healthier life."

Asked by Mossberg if the smartphone has begun to mature and plateau in features, Williams gave a defiant "No way" and started to talk about all the opportunities where technology can go. He said people will continue to buy new models because the technology will get better, but said that all the technologies that come to mind were things that he couldn't talk about, though he did mention the possible advantages of a "full tricorder" type of scan.

He also addressed a question of working conditions at the factories in China that manufacture the iPhone, saying "I've spent a lot of time and I couldn't be prouder of the work the team is doing to make sure the people who work there are treated fairly."

As expected, he didn't say much about future products, saying Apple explores all kinds of categories and will continue to look at them and think about where it can make a huge difference. But he did say that "the car is the ultimate mobile device."

Google: Moving beyond the "Walled Garden" of Apps

Omid Kordestani, Google's chief business officer, said that the company's original mission—to organize the world's information—hasn't changed, but acknowledged that the way we access information has changed with the ubiquity of mobile devices.

He said that apps have often created "walled gardens" of data, which is "an interesting problem." The world is just starting to grapple with what is possible on such devices.

Asked what was the most promising area of growth for Google, he said he was excited for Google's core business, which he described as "getting advertisers to the right people." In particular, he cited growth in mobile, video, programmatic ad purchasing, and buying.

Kordestani said search was evolving in ways similar to what you see in Google Now, becoming more productive and using voice. In commerce, he noted that 90 percent of commerce is still offline. Mobile devices are perfect for discovery and finding the best prices, and proximity queries—things such as where can I find a particular item in a few blocks—have doubled in the past year. "How do we make the friction go away?" he asked, noting the that company is rolling out "buy" buttons imminently.

On YouTube—which he said has a billion users—the service and its function will change, as watch time and mobile usage continue to increase. In the future, he said, it will become more interactive and more engaging.

The company does not have a monetization plan for self-driving cars. "You build it first," he said, and if users come, you can figure out how to make money. But he did say Google won't make cars itself, but rather will work with partners.

Asked by interviewer Kara Swisher about the issues the company is facing with European regulators, Kordestani said "it's a serious challenge" in that Google needs to spend more time working with the proper channels to make sure it understands the concerns. But he did say Europe is going through a difficult period, as American companies are generally doing quite well while European tech firms are not doing so well, despite the presence of a few well-known European startups such as Spotify.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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